Seahawks Rally Past Mardela, 4-2

BERLIN- Stephen Decatur’s girls’ varsity soccer team beat visiting Mardela, 4-2, on Monday in a somewhat odd game that mirrored the Seahawks’ season thus far.

Monday’s game against Mardela basically came down to a tale of two halves, with the Warriors winning the first half and the Seahawks taking the all-important second half. For Decatur, the game was a microcosm of sorts for the season during which the Seahawks have shown an early capacity to win one, lose one.

Decatur got on the board first on Monday with a goal by Tori Whigham with just over 33 minutes left in the first half. Whigham scooped up a carom off the Warrior goalkeeper and fired it into the corner to stake Decatur to a 1-0 lead. However, Mardela got on the board about 11 minutes later when a Decatur defender got back to help on a shot and had the ball deflect off her leg and into the net to tie the score at 1-1 with just over 21 minutes left in the half.

Strong winds played a role in the game from start to finish with each team benefiting from conditions. Mardela’s offense was going with the wind in the first half and found goal kicks and goalie clears carried just a little bit further and their shots on goal came in just a little bit harder. The score remained 1-1 until the 2:23 mark in the first half when Mardela scored on an indirect penalty kick that hit the crossbar and bounced straight down and across the goal line to take a 2-1 lead into halftime.

In the second half, with the strong winds now in favor of Decatur, the Seahawks wasted no time tying the score. Prolific Decatur scorer Bradley Janson fired a shot past the Mardela keeper with just over five minutes gone in the second half to tie the game at 2-2. About four minutes later, Decatur’s Alycia Skarzinski scored to give the Seahawks their first lead since the 20-minute mark of the first half.

Finally, with just over 18 minutes left in the game, Mardela returned a favor from the first half when a Warrior defender inadvertently knocked in a Seahawk shot to stake Decatur to a 4-2 lead with 18:46 left in the game.

Decatur was relentless on offense in the second half and dominated play in the middle of the field, rarely letting Mardela make any advances on its goal. In fact, Seahawk keeper Leann Flounlacker got her first touch of the second half with a little over 18 minutes left in the game. Decatur held on down the stretch and defeated the Warriors, 4-2.

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